


I Don't Believe In Fairytales

by francisabernathy



Category: Snowpiercer (2013)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 21:46:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1703684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/francisabernathy/pseuds/francisabernathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before, people would have cared. He’d have been branded a pervert and a paedophile and landed a good few years in prison. Now, though, he can see in Tanya’s eyes that she’s relieved he’s found someone to lean on, rely on, even if it’s the boy <i>he’s</i> spent the last decade and a half protecting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Believe In Fairytales

Edgar crawls into his bunk after Curtis wakes up, tosses and turns a little bit in a useless effort to go back to sleep after a nightmare. Edgar’s little and scrappy, and the image of a monkey is just visible enough that Curtis can associate it with Edgar before it vanishes, just like everything else he tries to remember from before.

Edgar’s a squirmer. He wriggles underneath Curtis’ arms and fits himself by his chest, head tucked under his chin so that he can feel Curtis’ heartbeat. Here is where Curtis is most fragile, but even then he won’t let himself break.

“Fuck off,” Curtis grumbles, but there’s no heat in it. Edgar smiles all broad and grabs at Curtis’ hand, holding it close, so close that his nails dig into dirty skin.

“Go back to sleep,” Edgar mutters. It’s something Curtis has always mumbled at him when Edgar himself can’t sleep.

There’s no sense of time here in the tail-end, but he’d bet that time was frozen in the middle of darkness right now, because there’s as close to silence as the tail-end can achieve. Edgar doesn’t ask what Curtis was dreaming of. He never does. Curtis would never tell him what, though. Other people have told him so much about life before, but never Curtis. Edgar had always thought it would be because he missed his old life, the one that wasn’t fraught with poverty and hunger and fear, and after probing a little too deep years ago Edgar had stopped asking and went to Tanya.

Edgar doesn’t go back to sleep. He knows that Curtis doesn’t either. After too many years sleeping underneath Curtis, he knows enough to recognise his breathing patterns by now. Edgar wriggles right up and sure enough, Curtis is lying with his eyes wide open, staring at the curtain that offers them the smallest increment of privacy. Edgar kisses Curtis without even really thinking about it. His beard is scratchy and they’re in an awkward position. He’s done it a few times before, and each time Curtis had pulled away just a little bit less until he’d stopped pulling away and had started asking for more.

Curtis gets a hand around the back of his neck and pulls him closer. Logically, he knows how this is wrong. He used to have some sort of moral code, but that had vanished when he’d tried to get at Edgar, when he was a tiny mite. When Gilliam had passed him over and told him to raise the child. All he’d done after that point was do right by Edgar and by Gilliam. This is just an extension of this.

Before, people would have cared. He’d have been branded a pervert and a paedophile for even thinking about it – the lines scratched on the walls of the train now total sixteen, and Curtis had stopped counting after his line count had topped thirty – and landed many, many years in prison. There are rules about this sort of thing. Edgar would have been – _is still_ – a child. But in this train, children grow up faster than a blink of an eye and Edgar is old enough to know what he wants. He’s a man now. He helps out with the revolution that they’re planning; he stands by Curtis and he knows when something is right or wrong. He’s intelligent enough to know not just want he needs but what he wants, and he can see in Tanya’s eyes that she’s relieved that he’s found someone to lean on, rely on.

Because when Curtis looks at Edgar, he sees all the versions of himself that he’s been, all the versions of himself that he’ll ever be. Young Edgar, wailing his head off. Edgar glaring at Grey when they’d played hide and seek and Grey was nowhere to be found for three days. Slightly-older Edgar following him around and running his mouth. An Edgar that’s older than he is now, world-weary and tired from the fight, maybe having children of his own.

Edgar deserves so much more than a bearded older guy with a hat who can’t offer him much more than himself and a protein bar.

When Edgar pulls back from him, Curtis’ breathing comes too quick, too harshly and his eyes are closed. Edgar thinks Curtis might be crying, or trying not to, and he rubs his thumb on Curtis’ scrubby beard and kisses him again.

 

In the morning, Curtis sits up and wipes at the sleep in his eyes. Edgar lies in the warm space Curtis has vacated, and maybe they have a few more beats of time before the day has to start and they’ll be counted. Edgar sits up halfway and winds his arms around Curtis’ shoulders and drags him back down. He won’t ask what Curtis had in his mind last night, or why he’d stopped himself from crying, but he can be a sort of comfort, and that can be enough in the frozen pocket of time they’ve found themselves in.

**Author's Note:**

> First _Snowpiercer_ fanfic! I watched it last night and couldn't get over these emotions and my brain just completely shut down, tbh. This is really shitty, unbeta'd and just a puddle of my emotions, but I had to get it out _somehow_. Title is from Natalia Kills' "Wonderland". If you've got this far, thanks for reading!


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